///3 S31 




HoUinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



OF 



THE RATE OF INTEREST; 



ITS INFLUENCE ON THE RELATIONS 



CAPITAL AND LABOR. 



SPEECH OF n/'C^OAREY, 



Df THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF PENNSYLVANIA, MAY lb, 1873. 




PHILADELPHIA: 

COLLII^S, PRINTER, 705 JAYISTE STREET. 

18T3. 



THE RATE OF INTEREST. 



Precisely a century and a half since, in 1723, the General Assem- 
bly of Pennsylvania reduced the legal charge for the use of money 
from eight to six per cent, per annum. This was a great step in 
the direction of civilization, proving, as it did, that the labor of 
the present was obtaining increased power over accumulations of 
the past, the laborer approaching toward equality with the capitalist. 
At that point it has since remained, with, however, some change 
in the penalties which had been then prescribed for violations of. 
the law. 

Throughout the recent war the financial policy of the I^^Tational 
Government so greatl}^ favored the money borrower, and the laborer, 
as to have afforded reason for believing that the actual rate of inte- 
rest was about to fall permanently below the legal one, with the 
efi'ect of speedily causing usury laws to fall into entire disuse. Since 
its close, however, under a mistaken idea that such was the real 
road to resumption, all the Treasury operations have tended in the 
direction of favoring the money lender; the result exhibiting itself 
in the facts, that combinations are being everywhere formed for rais- 
ing the price of money ; that the long loans of the past are being 
daily more and more superseded by the call loans of the present ; 
that manufacturer and merchant are more and more fleeced by 
Shylocks who would gladly take " the pound of flesh nearest the 
heart" from all over whom they are enabled to obtain control. 

Anxious for the perpetuation of this unhappy state of things, 
these latter now invite their victims to give their aid toward level- 
ling the barriers by which they themselves are even yet to a con- 
siderable extent protected; assuring them that further grant of 
power will be followed by greater moderation in its exercise. Mis- 
led thereby, money borrowers, traders and manufacturers, are seen 
uniting, year after year, with their common enemy in the effort at 
obtaining a repeal of the laAvs in regard to money under which the 
State has so long and so greatly prospered. Happily, our Avorking 
men, farmers, mechanics, and laborers, fail to see that advantage is 
likely to accrue to them from a change whose obvious tendency is 
that of increasing the power of the few who have money to lend 
over the many who need to borrow ; and hence it is that their Rep- 
resentatives at Harrisburg have so steadily closed their ears against 
the siren song by which it is sought to lead their constituents to 
give their aid to the work of their own destruction. 



4 

Under these circnm stances it is that we are now asked to give 
place in the organic law to a provision by means of which this 
deplorable system is to be made permanent ; the Legislature being 
thereby prohibited, be the necessity what it may, from placing any 
restraint upon the few who now control the supply of the most 
important of all the machinerj' of commerce, as against the many 
whose existence, and that of their wives and children, is dependent 
upon obtaining the use thereof on such terms as shall not from year 
to year cause them to become more and more mere tools in the 
hands of the already rich. This being the first time in the world's 
history that any such idea has been suggested, it may be well, before 
determining on its adoption, to study what has been elsewhere done 
in this direction, and what has been the result, as follows: — • 

Forty years since English money lenders were busily engaged in 
singing the same siren song that is now being here repeated. Jour- 
nalists in their pay assured manufacturers and traders that the road 
toward the cheapening of money lay in the direction of abolishing 
all restrictions upon the contracts of those who alone could furnish 
it; and, that the more completely the hands of the rich were freed 
the lighter would be the blows that would be dealt among the poor 
and the weak by whom they were everywhere surrounded. As the 
result of the combined eifort thus brought about, Parliament was 
led to pass the act of 2d Victoria, by which it w^as provided that — 

"from and after the passing of this Act, no Bill of Exchange or Promissory Note 
made payable at or within twelve months after the date thereof, or not having more 
than twelve months to run, nor any contract for the loan or forbearance of money 
above the sum of 10 pounds sterling shall by reason of any interest taken thereon 
or secured thereby, or any agreement to pay or creating or transferring any such 
Bill of Exchange or Promissory Note be void, nor shall the liability of any Party 
to such Bill of Exchange or Promissory Note nor the liability of any person bor- 
rowing any sum of money as aforesaid be affected by reason of any statute or law 
in force for the Prevention of Usury, nor shall any person or persons or body cor- 
porate drawing, accepting, endorsing, or signing any such Bill or Note, or lending 
or advancing or forbearing any money as aforesaid, or taking more than the present 
rate of interest in Great Britain and Ireland respectively for the loan or forbearance 
of money as aforesaid be subject to any Penalties under any statute or law relating 
to Usury or any other law whatsoever in force in any part of the United Kingdom 
to the contrary notwithstanding : Provided always that nothing herein contained 
shall extend to the loan or forbearance of any money upon security of any lands, 
tenements, or hereditaments, or any estate or interest therein. ' ' 

For a century previous to the passage of this act, as we are in- 
formed by a recent and very able writer, the rate of interest at the 
Bank of England and in the numerous local banks had never varied 
to the extent of even one per cent. ; and the average rate had been 
slightly below the legal one — say about 4| per cent. Set free, how- 
ever, from all restraint, and vested with power wholly unlimited, 
we find the Bank at once engaged in causing fluctuations tending 
so to destroy public confidence as greatly to raise the price at which 
the use of money might be commanded. At one moment it is raised 
from four to ten per cent., a rate almost equal to twenty per cent, 
with us. At another, and without any reasonable cause,^ it is sent 



clown to four, five, or six; to be again raised to eight, nine, or ten, 
and with results such as are here described by the writer above 
referred to : — 

"The other point worthy of attention is that while working this system of inces- 
sant variation the Bank has managed greatly to raise the general level of the rate of 
interest. ... In the twenty -five years previous to the passing of the Bank Act 
(from 1819 to 1844) the rate of discount used to be four per cent, when the Bank's 
stock of specie ranged between £10,000,000 and £7,000,000, rising to six per cent, 
(as in 1839-40) when the stock of specie fell to £3,000,000. . . . But now it 
charges four per cent, when it has 15,000,000 of gold, and nine and ten per cent, 
when its stock of specie still amounts to 13,000,000. In this way the Bank has 
been steadily working up the rate of interest until it has reached its present high 
level — that is to say, double what it used to be under similar circumstances in for- 
mer times. ... In this way the level — the base line, so to speak— of the Rate 
of Interest has become permanently raised. Trade of course is proportionately 
mulcted. The Bank in fact, and all the banks which willingly, as well as of neces- 
sity, follow its example, now claims for itself a larger portion of the profits of Trade 
than before. And thus Industry is mulcted to the advantage of Capital."* 

Following closely in the wake of the leviathan, we find London 
joint stock banks making dividends among their stockholders to 
the extent of twenty, thirty, and almost forty per cent., the whole 
of which has ultimately to be taken from the wages of labor 
employed in manufactures, or in agriculture.f Looking now to the 
manufacturing districts, we find loan associations charging a penny 
a week for the advance of a single shilling, giving an annual rate 
of nearly five hundred per cent. Turning thence to the courts, we 
find, in a case involving some £20,000, the judge denying to a plain- 
tiif the verdict for which he had prayed, on the ground that, 
although the law was with him, the usury had been so monstrous 
that it could not conscientiously be allowed. At no time in Brit- 
ain's history have pauperism and usury travelled so closely hand in 
hand together ; the rich growing rich to an extent that till now 
would have been regarded as fabulous, and the wretchedness of the 
poor having grown in like proportion. 

Looking now homeward, we see that throughout the period from 
1861 to 1866, the energies of the country had been greatly given 
to the work of fitting out fleets and armies ; of feeding and clothing 
almost millions of men; and of annihilating capital that had accu- 
mulated in the past. For accomplishment of these various works 
large supplies were needed of that machinery of exchange known as 
money, and for nearly the whole thereof we were required to de- 
pend upon the domestic market; Britain, fortunately, having 
positively refused to lend us even a single dollar. Nevertheless, at 

* Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1865. Article, The Rate of Interest. 

f The Investor's Monthly Manual, appendix to London Economist of Oct, 28, 1872, gives 
a table of dividends for 1871 and 1872, of 117 banking companies in the United King- 
dom of England, Ireland, and Scotland. The rates vary from 3 to Sii per cent, per 
annum, including bonus. One only of them declares a semi-annual dividend of 1 8 per cent.; 
sixteen declare annual dividends of 20 per cent.; six of 18 per cent,; three of 16 per 
cent. ; ten of 14 per cent. ; seventeen of 12 per cent. ; twenty-one of 10 per cent. ; and 
so on down, without counting fractions. The reserved surplus of these institutions is 
not stated. 



6 

the close of this scene of war and waste, there were in 1866 but 
ten States in which the legal rate of interest was more than six per 
cent, as follows: — 

California . .10 

Florida, Alabama, and Texas ...... 8 

New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Georgia, and 

South Carolina . 7 

[In five of these the rate might, by special contract, be carried up 
to ten per cent. ; in two to eight ; and in two, Minnesota and Texas, 
to twelve per cent. In California, the power of the usurer is wholly 
unrestricted, as a consequence of which money-lenders entirely con- 
trol the State.*] 

"Why was this? How was it that demands for money so unpar- 
alleled, here or elsewhere, had not only caused no movement upward 
in its price, but had actually been attended by such decline therein 

* The following passage from a valuable paper on this subject, just now published by 
Mr. Nahum Capen, of Boston, exhibits the working of repeal at an earlier period, aa 
tried in some of the Western and Southern States : — 

"The experiment of repealing the usury laws was made in Alabama; it was continued 
eleven months. I was informed in 1850, by U. S. Senator Lewis fi'om that State, that 
they would not recover from the ruinous consequences under a quarter of a century. 
Nearly forty jears ago it was tried in Indiana. In a letter from Hon. W. W. Wick, dated 
at Washington, D. C, March 7th, 1849, who was then a member of Congress from that 
State, he says, ' In Indiana the usury laws were repealed twelve or fourteen years ago, 
perhaps more, and were not reinstated for three or four years. The results were fright- 
ful.' . . . ' If I had time, I would be glad to make a sketch of the desolations left in 
the track of the usurer, during his brief reign in Hoosier land. I was judge of one of 
our circuits at the time, and was a shuddering witness to the desolations. I have rendered 
judgment upon contracts for payment of fifty or twenty cents per day for a loan of fifty 
or a hundred dollars, and in some instances the interest had become more than ten times 
the amount of the principal.' . . . ' I know many men of excellent natural qualities, 
and much inclined to be moral and gay, who became hopelessly demoralized and 
misanthropical. The moral desolations created by the absence of usury laws will tell 
upon any community to an extent almost infinitely beyond the ruin of estate.' . . . 
' As years pass away, the evil results will develop themselves in a geometrical ratio. 
Long before they develop their full force and effects, the community will demand usury 
laws, and the blighting curses of many a withered or aching heart will follow the advo- 
cates of their repeal to their graves.' It is to be regretted that the entire and interest- 
ing letter of Judge Wick cannot be given. In 1849, repeal was voted by the Legislature 
of Wis<;onsin. In January, 1850, the Hon. J. P. Walker, U. S. Senator from that State, 
wrote a letter speaking of the fruits of repeal. He says, ' The argument in favor of 
this policy was, that the competition in the loan of money — the rate of interest being 
unrestricted — would produce a great influx of capital to the State. It certainly has 
produced an influx of money, but not of capital. The result is (and is to be), that money 
has been freely taken at an interest of from 20 to 50 per cent. The money loaned was 
that of non-residents.' A year later a letter was written and published by R. W. Wright, 
Esq., of Wakusha, in which he says, ' The results of the law were so disastrous to the 
best interests of the State, and so contrary to the expectations of its friends, in increas- 
ing instead of diminishing the rates of interest, that the experiment was very readily 
abandoned. Its bitter fruits were left behind.' That they were left behind, may be 
inferred from a remark made by the Governor of that State, in his message in 1856. He 
said that the State would not recover from the shock for a generation. In Ohio, they 
removed all penalties for usury in 1851, and allowed an interest by contract of 10 per 
cent. The experiment proved a snd one. In less than four weeks after the passage of 
the law, parties from that State were in New England and New York, soliciting lai-ge loans 
on real estate at 10 per cent." 



as to have lecl to the hope that usury laws would speedily become 
of no effect whatsoever? The answer to these questions is found 
in the fact, that for the first time in our history the supply of that 
machinery of exchange for whose use alone men pay interest, had 
come to bear a fair proportion to the need for its use. For the first 
time men paid in cash for almost everything they needed. For the 
first time commerce ceased to be clogged by the delays incident to 
a system under which — as before the war — almost everybody was 
in debt, and almost every one unable to obtain the money required 
for meeting his engagements. For the first time there wa8 a per- 
fectly healthful rapidity of circulation, giving to the socletary body 
that industrial independence by means of which it was enabled, 
unaided from abroad, to furnish to the government materials and 
labor to the extent of thousands of millions of dollars, becoming 
stronger with each successive year. 

Writing two years before the breaking out of the Hebellion, Mr. 
Edward Everett was led, after careful inquiry, to estimate the purely 
personal debt of the country, apart from that of trade, manufac- 
tures, or agriculture, at 1500 millions of dollars; "a mountain 
load," as he described it, "more deadly than fever or j^lague, 
more destructive than the frosts of spring, or the blights of sum- 
mer ;" and yet, multifarious as were the evils then so clearly pre- 
senting themselves to him as resulting from so sad a state of things, 
he had evidently failed to aj^preciate, to even a tithe of its real ex- 
tent, the power thereby given to capital in its contest with labor, 
as, for the consideration of the Convention, it will be now exhibited. 

Every one who parts with property payment for which is to be 
made at any future time, by so doing constitutes himself a money- 
lender to the extent of the amount whose payment is thus postponed. 
If the property be purely personal, he adds to what would other- 
wise be the price so much as will cover the charge for the time and 
for the risk to be incurred. The borrower being regarded as a 
thoroughly responsible man, the interest thus charged may not 
exceed ten or twelve per cent, per annum ; but passing downward 
in the societary scale the charge rises in the direct ratio of the 
poverty of the party borrowing, until at length we find the very 
poor, and the very weak, paying interest at the rate of sixty, eighty, 
a hundred, and perhaps even, as now in England, almost five 
hundred per cent. At the date at which Mr. Everett wrote there 
were here more than 16,000,000 of persons capable, more or less, 
of contracting debts, large or small ; nine-tenths of whom, as 
there is reason for believing, were paying interest at rates varying 
from ten to two hundred per cent. Had each one of these been 
required, daily or weekly, to give his note for the debt thus in- 
curred, there would have been exhibited, to an amount greatly ex- 
ceeding two thousand millions, uncurrent money as perfectly dead, 
so far as regarded all performance of exchanges, as if it had been 
buried in the earth. As a consequence of this the societary 



8 

movement, in the first year of the war, was paralyzed to a degree 
greatly exceeding anything the country before had ever known. 
What then was needed was live money to take the place of the 
dead that was then being hourly created. To the end that this 
might be supplied, the ISTation, through its finance minister, pro- 
claimed to all its members that it needed labor and labor's pro- 
ducts in their various forms, and would give in exchange live 
money to the extent of $400,000,000 ; or, in other words, money of 
such character as fitted it to be used for effecting exchanges of any 
and every kind whatsoever. At once the scene was changed, the 
employer being now enabled to pay cash for all the service, and all 
the materials, of which he stood in need; and the workman, in like 
manner, enabled to pay in cash for the food and clothing required 
by his family and himself. The farmer, now selling his crops for 
live money, was thus enabled to place the storekeeper in a position 
to buy for cash in the distant cities. Almost at once, and as if by 
magic, the usurious charges disappeared, thereby lightening the 
burdens of workingmen, farmers, mechanics, and laborers, to an 
annual extent thrice, if not even more than thrice, exceeding the 
amount of greenbacks issued. Of all financial measures on re- 
cord there has been none which has so much tended toward 
elevation of the laborer, and toward establishing harmony in the 
relations of labor and capital, as has been the case with that by 
which $400,000,000 of live money, free of interest, was made to 
take the place of thousands of millions of dead money for whose 
use our people had been paying interest at twice, thrice, and even 
twenty times, the legal rates. Had the war given us nothing but 
this, it would be well worth to the nation, leaving out of view the 
waste of life, far more than all its cost. ITevertheless, we have 
among us financiers, so called, busily engaged in denouncing, as " a 
forced loan," the admirable machinery that thus has been given to 
our people, an 3 insisting that we shall now discard it with the 
certainty before us of being thereby compelled to return to the dead- 
money system with its usurious rates. To a considerable extent this 
has been already done, the consequences exhibiting themselves in 
the money grievances in regard to which there is now so much and 
so just complaint. 

With the close of the war, the work of destruction ceased. The 
soldier resumed his work in the factory and the field. The sailor, 
ceasing to aid in blockading southern ports, engaged himself in aid- 
ing the transport of southern cotton. Under such circumstances, 
production rapidly and largely increased, and with every step in 
that direction labor should have grown in power to command the 
use of machinery of exchange. Directly the reverse, however, 
from year to ^^ear the price of money has risen, and with such in- 
crease in the power of those who control the sources of supply that 
they are now being everywhere enabled to command the aid of 
ti-aders, manufacturers, miners, and stock gamblers, in their eflbrt 



9 

at obtaining the passage of laws legalizing contracts at rates bj 
means of which the burdens of laborers in the factory and the 
field must be much increased. Inquiring now of these men, or of 
their victims, the cause of the extraordinary change thus exhib- 
ited, we find ourselves assured that it is due to the immense ex- 
tent to which circulating capital is becoming fixed in buildings, 
factories, railroads, bridges, and other of the machinery required 
for the maintenance of commerce, and for the comfort and conve- 
nience of those ewgaged in the work. "We are thus presented with 
the extraordinary fact that, while waste of labor and materials — 
to the extent of thousands cf£ millions — had been attended by an 
actual decline in the price of money, an application of other thou- 
sands of millions to the work of production has caused, and is caus- 
ing, such an increase in the power of money monopolists as to 
threaten ruin to some of the most important industries for which 
so many and so important works have been constructed. 

That the cause thus alleged for the existence of the present extra- 
ordinary state of things has no foundation in fact will be obvious 
to those who reflect that, whatever may be the uses to which it is 
applied, money never diminishes in quantity by reason of such 
application. Let a railroad company call for a million of dollars 
to-day, and let it forthwith distribute the same among laborers, 
mechanics, landowners, and rolling-mill proprietors, it will at once 
again present itself in the pockets of the former, and in the bank 
accounts of the latter, no change in the quantity having taken 
place. The more instant the exchange of money for labor and 
materials the less is the quantity of money used ; and hence it is 
that with every stage of growth in the rapidity of the societary cir- 
culation, the need for it in any material form, whether that of notes 
or coin, tends to diminish with diminution in the power of the 
money lender to compel payment for its use. This, precisely, is 
what took place throughout the war, and hence it was that the 
rate of interest declined at the moment when national bonds were 
being issued to the extent of thousands of millions of dollars. 

With the close of the war there came, however, a culmination of 
that monopoly system established under the national banking laws, 
by means of which the nation is required, in all the future, to ac- 
commodate itself to the procrustean bed thereby created. A de- 
cade has now elapsed since its author determined that the nation 
might be allowed, on certain conditions, to have, in addition to 
$400,000,000 of greenbacks, the use of $300,000,000 of circulating 
notes. Since that time our population has increased in numbers 
tT/enty-five per cent ; our manufactures have grown from 2000 to 
5000 millions ; our railroads from 33 to 70 thousand miles ; our 
internal commerce, as well as the space over which it is to be main- 
tained, has probably quintupled; and yet, so far have his successors 
been from allowing the machinery of exchange to increase in fair 
proportion to the daily growing necessity for its use, that there has 



10 

been, and still is, a constant effort at compelling diminution of 
its quantity; the result being seen in the fact that half a dozen 
individuals have now acquired power, by means of lock-ups and 
other contrivances, so to disturb the commercial operations of the 
whole nation as to compel those who have anything to lose to hesi- 
tate about engaging in any productive operations whatsoever re- 
quiring the use of credit. This, however, as we are told, is the road 
to resumption, however objectionable the results that thus far have 
been obtained. "Were those who so instruct us to give to this great 
question a little more attention, they would probably be led to the 
conclusion that the present sad state of things is consequent upon 
a policy which is daily compelling a substitution of dead for living 
money ; and that the high rates of interest which thus are caused 
tend to the destruction of that productive power to which alone 
can we look for the force required for enabling us ever again to 

. witness a return to specie payments. 

t- Closing their eyes to this, and failing to see that it is to in- 
crease in that power they are to look for permanent prosperity 
for themselves, railroad and other corporations are perpetually^ tor- 
menting legislative bodies for permission to pay high rates of inte- 
rest. Farmers and manufacturers, as a consequence, find it daily 
more and more difficult to obtain the aid of which they stand so 
much in need ; and now, all are asked to ignore the great fact that 
the trouble is one that must increase from year to year so long 
as we shall persist in requiring that the man shall wear the shoe 
that had been fitted to the foot of the half-grown boy. Let them 
follow the advice that thus is given and the result must be, that call 
loans, and interest calculated by the day, will become from hoar to 
hour more general, with daily increase of power on the part of Shy- 
lock to claim his "pound of flesh," and daily diminishing power on 
the part of both individuals and corporations to set limits to his 
exactions. Let them, on the contrary, set themselves diligently to 
work to make our legislators comprehend that the road thus indi- 
ca':ed is the road to ruin; that the remedy for existing difficulties 
is to be found in allowing the machinery of exchange to grow with 
the growth of population and production; and the day will not 
then be distant when usury laws will pass from existence by reason 
of a reduction of the charge for the use of money to a rate below 
that fixed by law even in that State in which it now is lowest. 
Then, and not till then, shall we enter on the road leading to a 
resumption of specie payments. 

IVe may be told, however, that at times money is abundant, and 
that even so late as last summer it was difficult to obtain legal 
interest. Such certainly was the case with those who desired to 
put it out on call ; but at that very moment those who needed to 
obtain the use of money for long periods were being taxed, even on 
securities of unexceptionable character, at double, or more than 
double, the legal rates. The whole tendency of the existing system 



11 

is in the direction of annihilating the disposition for making 
those permanent loans of money by means of which the people of 
other countries are enabled to carry into effect operations tending 
to secure to themselves control of the world's commerce. Under 
that system there is, and there can be, none of that stability in the 
price of money required for carrying out such operations. 

Leaving out of view the recent great combination for the main- 
tenance and perpetuation of slavery, there has been none so power- 
ful, none so dangerous, as that which now exists among those who, 
having obtained a complete control of the money power, are labor- 
ing to obtain legal recognition of the right of capital to perfect 
freedom as regards all the measures to which it may be pleased to 
resort for the purpose of obtaining more perfect control over labor. 
Already, several of the States have to some extent yielded to the 
pressure that has been brought to bear upon them. Chief among 
these is Massachusetts, the usury laws having there been totally 
repealed, and with the effect, says a distinguished citizen of that 
State, that "all the savings institutions of the city at once raised 
the rate from six to seven per cent. ; those out of the city to seven 
and a half and eight per cent. ; and there was no rate too high for 
the greedy. The consequence," as he continues, " has been disas- 
trous to industrial pursuits. Of farming towns in my county, 
more than one-quarter have diminished in population." Rates per 
day have now to a great extent, as I am. assured, superseded the old 
rates per month or year; two cents per day, or $7 30 per annum, 
having become the charge for securities of the highest order. What, 
under such circumstances, must be the rate for paper of those 
who, sound and solvent as they may be, cannot furnish such secu- 
rity, may readily be imagined. Let the monopoly system be main- 
tained and the' rate, even at its headquarters, New England, will 
attain a far higher point than any that has yet been reached ; this, 
too, in despite of the fact that her people had so promptly secured 
to themselves a third of the whole circulation allowed to the 
40,000,000 of the population of the Union scattered throughout al- 
most a continent. How greatly they value the power that has been 
thus obtained is proved by the fact that every effort at inducing 
them to surrender, for advantage of the west or south, any portion 
thereof has met with resistance so determined that nothing has been 
yet accomplished. 

Abandonment of our present policy is strongly urged upon us for 
the reason that mortgages bear in New York a higher rate of inte- 
rest. A Pennsylvanian in any of the northern counties has, as we 
are told, but to cross the line to obtain the best security and seven 
per cent. Why, however, is it that li,is neighbors find themselves 
compelled to go abroad when desirous of obtaining money on such 
security? The answer to this question is found in the fact that the 
taxation of mortgages is there so great as to absorb from half to 
two-thirds of the interest promised to be paid. "The result of 
this," say the Tax Commissioners in their recent report — 



12 

*' is exactly "what might have been expected. Capital which formerly 
found its way into real estate is now directed into other channels ; and 
to such an extent that, were it not for the provisions of law which exempt 
the mortgage investments of savings banks and life insurance companies 
from taxation, and compel these institutions to invest a part of their 
capital in such securities, money could now hardly be obtained in New 
York for the improvement of real estate on pledge of the property. 
Again, it was formerly a very general custom to embody in wills a pro- 
vision that property bequeathed or to be held in trust should be invested 
in mortgages ; but this custom, the commissioners are informed, is now 
almost entirely done away with, while executors and trustees are continu- 
ally importuned by legatees to change the character of such investments, 
on the ground that they no longer continue to afford a fair interest." 

Is there in the state of things thus exhibited anything to induce 
our people to adopt the 'New York system in lieu of that under 
which they have so long and so greatly prospered? For answer to 
this question we may turn to the report just now made, by the late 
Revenue Commissioner Wells, on state taxation, in which he points 
to "Pennsylvania under her system of taxation advancing with 
giant strides in wealth and population, while New York, under the 
influence of old and exploded ideas, moves onward in development 
comparatively at a snail's pace." 

Again, we are told that Ohio legalizes " special contracts" up to 
eight per cent. ; and, that if we would prevent the efflux of capi- 
tal we must follow in the same direction. Is there, however, in the 
exhibit now made by that State, anything to warrant us in so 
doing? Like Pennsylvania, she has abundant coal and ore. She has 
two large cities, the one fronting on the Ohio, and the other on the 
lakes, giving her more natural facilities for maintaining commerce 
than are possessed by Pennsylvania ; and j^et, while the addition 
to her population in the last decade was but 306,000, that of Penn- 
sylvania was 615,000. In that time she added 900 to her railroad 
mileage, Pennsylvania meantime adding 2500. While her capital 
engaged in manufactures rose from 57 to 141 millions, that of Penn- 
sylvania grew from 190 to 406, the mere increase of the one being 
more than fifty per cent, in excess of the total of the other. May 
we find in these figures any evidence that capital has been attracted 
to Ohio by a higher rate of interest, or repelled from our State by 
a lower one ? Assuredly not ! 

What in this direction is proposed to be done among ourselves is 
shown in the section now presented for our consideration. By it 
the legal rate in the absence of " special contracts" is to be raised 
to seven per cent. ; such " contracts," however ruinous in their char- 
acter, and whatsoever the nature of the security, are to be legalized ; 
the only exception to these sweeping changes being that national 
banks issuing circulating notes are to be limited to seven per cent. 
Shylock asked only "the due and forfeit of his bond." Let this 
section be adopted, and let him then present himself in any of our 



13 

courts ; can its judge do other than decide that " tlie law allows it 
and the court awards it," monstrous as may have heen the usurj^ 
and discreditable as may have been the arts hy means of which the 
unfortunate debtor had been entrapped? Assuredly not. Shylock, 
happily, was outwitted, tbe bond liaving made no provision for 
taking even "one jot of blood." Here, the unfortunate debtor, 
forced by his flinty-hearted creditor into a " special contract" utterly 
ruinous, may, in view of the destruction of all hope for the future 
of his wife and children, shed almost tears of blood, but they will 
be of no avail ; yet do we claim to live under a system whose foun- 
dation-stone exhibits itself in the great precept from which we learn 
that duty requires of us to do to others as Ave would that others 
should do unto ourselves. 

By the English law the little landowner, the mechanic who owns 
the house in which he lives, is protected against his wealthy mort- 
gagee. Here, on the contrary, the farmer, suftering under the effects 
of blight or drought, and thus deprived of power to meet with 
punctuality the demands of his mortgagee, is to have no protection 
whatsoever. So, too, with the poor mechanic suffering temporarily 
by reason of accidental incapacity for work, and, with the sheriff 
full in view before him, compelled to enter into a "special c^^ntract" 
doubling, if not even trebling, the previous rate of interest. Infa- 
mous as may be its extortion, the court may not deny the aid re- 
quired for its enforcement. > 

The amount now loaned on mortgage security in this State, at 
six per cent., is certainly not less than 400, and probably extends 
to 500 millions of dollars, a large portion of which is liable to be 
called for at any moment. Let this section be adopted, and we 
shall almost at once witness a combined movement among mort- 
gagees for raising the rate of interest, i^otices demanding payment 
will fly thick as hail throughout the State, every holder of such 
security knowing well that the greater the alarm that can be pro- 
duced, and the more utter the impossibility of obtaining other 
moneys, the larger may be made the future rate of interest. The 
unfortunate mortgagor must then accept the terms, hard as they 
may be, dictated to him, be they eight, ten, twelve, or twenty per 
cent. Such, as I am assured, has been the course of things in Con- 
necticut, where distress the most severe has been produced by a 
recent abandonment by the State of the policy under which it has 
in the past so greatly prospered. At this moment her savings 
banks are engaged in compelling mortgagors to accept 8 per cent, 
as the present rate. How long it will be before they will carry 
it up to 10 or 12, or what will be the eft'ect, remains to be seen. 
Already among ourselves the eftects of the sad blundere of our 
great financiers exhibit themselves in the very unpleasant fact, that 
sheriffs' sales are six times more numerous than they were in the 
period from 1864 to 1867, when the country was so severely suffer- 
ing under the waste of property, labor, and life which had but thea 



14 

occurred. Let this section be adopted, giving perfect freedom to 
the Shylocks of the day, and the next half dozen years will wit- 
ness the transfer, under the sheriff's hammer, of the larger portion 
of the real property of both the city and the State. Of all the 
devices j^et invented for the subjugation of labor by capital, there 
is none tliat can claim to be entitled to take precedence of that 
which has been now proposed for our consideration. 

To the general free trade movement there is, however, to be one 
exception, to wit, those national banks which issue circulating 
notes. In consideration of the supposed great profit thence result- 
ing, they are to be limited to a charge of seven per cent. ISTever- 
theless, the utmost they thus can make scarT^ely exceeds one per 
cent.; enabling them with circulation to make eight per cent., 
where without it they would make but seven.* IJnder existing 
arrangements they will continue to furnish to the community that 
machinery in whose absence commerce would almost die away ; but 
will they, can they, continue so to do under the new one that is 
-4J0W proposed? Let us inquire. The E"ational Bank system having 
now become an absolute monopoly, enabling stockholders to make 
large profits, other persons anxious to participate in some degree 
therein have obtained State charters under which they do a busi- 
ness precisely similar to that of those English joint-stock banks 
which now make dividends to the extent of twenty and thirty per 
cent. Trading almost entirely on the capital of others they offer 
to depositors large interest, to provide for whose payment loans are 
made on the most usurious terms. Here, as there, the business is 
profitable, but the risks are great; it being carried on in utter defi- 
ance of the law which limits banks to six per cent, as the legal rate 
of interest. Real capitalist^ fear connection with them and, as a 
consequence, their progress thus far has not been great. Let the 
usury laws be repealed, and let usury in all its forms be legalized, 
and we shall see such banks organized on a scale so large as to com- 
pel the national banks to follow in the same direction, abandoning 
the idea of furnishing circulation. Let it once be shown that State 
banks without it can make larger dividends than national banks 
with it, and the way will have been prepared for having these lat- 
ter, Subject as they are to the infinite and absurd restrictions and 
responsibilities of the banking law, to pass gradually from exist- 
ence. "Will that tend to lower the rate of interest? Most certainly 
not. 

Why, however, we are asked, should there be any limit whatso- 
ever thereto ? As well might the question be put as to why there 

* A bank being instituted with a capital of $100,000, that amount is required to be 
loaned to the Treasury at an interest of five per cent., yielding $5000. The bank now 
receives $90,000 of notes, three-fourths of which it is to be authorized to lend at seven 
per cent., yielding $4725, the two combined yielding $9725. Deducting now the federal 
taxes, say $2000, we have $7725 as the total profit, leaving less than one per cent, as 
the profit of circulation. 



15 

dhould be any limit to railroad fares. Money and the road are both 
alike mere machinery of exchange, the one aiding in the transfer 
of property from hand to hand as the other aids in changing it in 
place. The charge for the use of one is called interest. That for 
the other is denominated tolls. The farmer, anxious to be enabled 
cheaply to go to market, demands that there be established a limit 
to the power of railroad managers, and to some extent that has 
everywhere been done. That such regulations have to a great 
extent been set at naught we know, but have we thus been led to 
the belief that their managers should at once be set free from all 
restriction? Has it not, on the contrary, produced throughout the 
community a feeling that there exists an absolute necessity for pro- 
viding more effectually against abuses of the power that had been 
granted ; and has not the Committee just now adopted rules to that 
effect far more stringent than had before existed? Has not your 
Committee on Agriculture, Manufactures, and Commerce moved 
in the same direction, giving us that section of the chapter now 
before us which reads as follows : — ■ 

Sec. 3. No combinations of employers or employed to enable the one 
to control the bushiess operations of the other, or combinations to main- 
tain arbitrary prices for manufactures, merchandise, or the products of 
labor of any description, or for labor itself (including professional ser- 
vices) shall be allowed. Nor shall any combination of individuals, 
associations, or corporations to obstruct the free course of trade, or to 
make or maintain arbitrary rates for freight or passage on rivers, rail- 
ways, or canals be permitted ; and the Legislature shall pass laws to 
prevent and punish such corporations. 

Studying this carefully, its readers cannot fail to feel surprised 
to see that no mention is here made of combinations for controlling 
the supply of money and for raising its price. That such combi- 
nations exist we certainly know. Year after year we see some half 
dozen men in the Bank of England combining for raising the price 
of the commodity they have to sell, and thus producing crises each 
more ruinous than the one by which it had been preceded. Week 
after week w^e witness such combinations among ourselves, and 
with results tenfold more ruinous than any which can result from 
those having for their object the maintenance of " arbitrary prices 
for manufactures, merchandise, or the products of labor:" yet 
does provision for punishment of those so engaged find no place 
in the section just now read. Year after year is there an increase 
in the number of persons who need to use the circulating note ; in 
the space over which they are scattered; in the quantity of "manu- 
factures, merchandise, or the products of labor" needing to be 
exchanged ; with steady contraction of the machinery by means of 
which exchanges may be made, and corresponding increase of the 
power of combination among the few who now control the move- 
ments of the money market: yet is there here no suggestion of 
punishment for those who are thus from hour to hour increasing 



16 

the dangers attendant upon engaging in any enterprise requiring 
an extended use of credit. So far, indeed, is it the reverse of this, 
that by the section now under consideration they are expressly told, 
that, combine as they may for cramping the money market, for pro- 
ducing distrust, and for compelling holders of merchandise, owners 
of ships, houses, or land, with bankruptcy staring them in the face 
as a consequence of failure of submission to the "special contract" 
system, they may safely do so, free from all danger of interference 
by the courts. 

Of what importance is a combination for raising the price of pork, 
beef, or cotton, compared with the one now in operation, and that 
has for months maintained money at so high a price as to have in 
a great degree paralyzed the whole domestic trade of the Union ? 
Ot'none whatsoever! Can, then, any benefit result from adoption 
of even this third section ? Assuredly not. It is but an attempt 
at cutting away decayed branches of a sickly tree, leaving the root 
in a state of disease which threatens to result in death. 

Every purchase and sale involves a contract for the delivery and 
receipt of money, and as a consequence the amount of these latter 
is equal to the total of the former, from the purchase of a penny 
whistle to that of the thousands of millions of bonds that pass 
annually from hand to hand in our various money markets. The 
great trade of all is, therefore, that of money; its amount being 
such as would require for its expression a row of figures whose 
length would create astonishment in all who saw it. For the car- 
rying on of this wonderful trade, and for supplying the machinery 
by whose aid alone can circulation be maintained, the Federal gov- 
ernment has instituted a monopoly by means of which a few thou- 
sand persons are enabled to control at pleasure the monetary 
movement, and to raise at will the price of the commodity in which 
they deal. That this may be done with perfect safety to themselves 
it has now become essential to have the usury laws repealed, giving 
to the monopolists power unlimited over the price of a commodity 
the supply of which has been by law confined to them. How this 
has operated in England the Committee has already seen. How it 
mus,t operate here, freed from all the restrictions by which real 
estate is there protected, may readily be imagined. As well might 
the great railroad companies which are now so rapidly monopolizing 
the means of transportation, ask to be relieved from the few restric- 
tions to which they are already subject; alleging that further grant 
of power had become essential for enabling them cheaply to carry 
to market the products of the land. 

Travelling onward in the direction thus proposed, shall we find 
ourselves on the road to civilization, or even on that which leads 
to resumption of specie payments? For answer to this question I 
would refer the Committee to the following paragraph, now a cen- 
tury old, from Turgot, one of the most distinguished economists 
that Europe has yet produced, to wit: — 



17 

""\>''e may regard the rate of interest as a sort of level helow which 
all labor, all cultivation, all manufactures, and all commerce cease. It 
is like a sea spread ov'er a great country of which tlie mountain summits 
rise above the waters, forming fertile and cultivated islands. The sea 
flowing out, the hill-slopes and the plains and valleys gradually appear, 
covering themselves with products of every kind. To inundate the land 
and destroy the cultivation, or to restore to agriculture extensiA^e terri- 
tories, it is sufficient that the water should rise or fall a single foot. It 
is the abundance of capital that animates to effort; and the low rate of 
interest is at once the effect and the indication of that abundance." 

Than the view thus presented nothing could be more accurate. 
Reduction in the rate of interest indicates a growing power of labor 
over capital, and it follows as necessarily consequent upon increase 
in the variety of demands for human service. Interest is low in 
England, France, Germany, Holland, and Belgium; high in Russia, 
Turkey, Australia, and South America. The tendency of the*^ J</^ 
j)recious metals is toward those countries where interest is low, and / 
from those in which it is high, as is now shown in these United ' 
States. That it may be here reduced we need that a proper supply 
of the machinery of exchange be allowed to our people, increas- 
ing the rapidity of circulation and oftering new inducements 
for the application of capital to the work of developing the enor- 
mous mineral and metallic resources of the Union. With every 
step in this direction there must be a growing tendency toward 
becoming exporters of cloth and iron, with growing power to retain 
the precious metals, and to command their use for all the purposes 
of exchange. 

The Pennsylvania capital engaged in manufactures and mining 
in 1860 was $190,000,000 as against $256,000,000 in 'New England. 
By the last census that in the former is shoAvn to have grown to 
491 ; the latter meantime having arrived at 495. The ISfew Eng- 
land product is given at $994,000,000 ; that of Pennsylvania being 
but $790,000,000 ; but between the'two there is this essential dif- 
ference, that nearly all the raw material, and very much of the 
food, of the former come from abroad, the contribution of l^ew 
England herself being but little beyond the wages of labor and the 
profits of conversion ; whereas, in the latter by far the largest share 
is produced from the soil of the State itself. Pennsylvania produces 
coal and iron, and feeds her people mainly with the products of her 
soil. She supplies the world with oil. New England buys her oil 
to sell it again in the thousand forms in which it presents itself 
among the commodities into which she converts the food, the coal, 
the iron, the hides, and the wool, drawn from abroad. How greatly 
this aftects the question under consideration exhibits itself in the 
fact, that the average proportion borne by raw material to finished 
products is shown by the census of 1860 to be more than fifty per 
cent. Such being the case, it is difficult, as it seems to me, to avoid 
2 



18 

arriving at the conclusion that the production, and consequent e in 
merce, of our people are much greater than those of all New 
England ; and, that our claim to he put on an equal footing with 
these latter in regard to the money power is founded in reason and 
in justice, l^evertheless, when Pennsylvania complains that JS'ew 
England, not her equal in productive power, has been allowed thrice 
as much as has been allowed to her ; that 'New York, not more, 
certainly, than her equal, has been allowed twice as much ; that 
the two combined have nearly five times as much ; she is met, and 
that invariably, by a combined vote by means of which it has thus 
far been decided that this monstrous inequality that has been estab- 
lished shall continue to be maintained. As a consequence of this 
it is, that her farmers and her manufacturers are being subjected to 
demands of the most usurious kind ; and, that the money lender 
is being more and more encouraged to require of his victims to aid 
in perpetuating the mischief by means of an amendment to the 
Constitution that shall place it wholly beyond the power of the 
Legislature to give relief, however great the oppression which may 
be perpetrated. 

Pennsylvania has been, and most properly, described as "a blind 
old giant." Blind she has always been to the magnitude of her 
powers, and to the slight recognition, by both l^orth and East, of 
her claims to their consideration. Spoken of, and often treated, as 
a sort of modern Boeotia, she rarely suggests such claims without 
meeting a rebuff; and yet it is safe, as I think, to say that no 
community of whose historj^ we have any knowledge, presents a 
brighter record. Never having had a witch upon her soil, she has 
never either burned or hanged one. Never having had a State 
religion, no man within her limits has ever suffered because of his 
religious belief. On her soil, and by her people, was commenced 
that crusade against human slavery whose result is now about to 
exhibit itself in its abolition throughout the continent and its 
adjacent islands. Travelling southward, her sons, or their descend- 
ants, were first, at Mecklenburg in 1775, to give to the world a 
declaration of national independence. Throughout the troubled 
years which followed she performed her entire duty as regarded 
supplies of men, or of material with which to maintain the contest. 
In that day of gloom when Washington was about to make, at 
Trenton and Princeton, a last effort at resistance to the British 
arms, Philadelphia men, with Morris at their head, furnished, on 
the instant, all the money needed; and Pennsylvania men were 
largely conspicuous among the forces which followed him across the 
Delaware. The war closed, and a Federal Constitution agreed upon 
in Convention, she — first among the great States and by a two-thirds 
majority — set the example of its ratification ; thus exhibiting 
a magnanimity which found but tardy followers among the larger 
States. But for her, it may be doubted if ratification could ever 



19 

have been secured.* In the recent war she was first to raise a 
real army — those Reserves which saved Washington in July, 1861, 
and of which not ten per cent., as I am assured, returned to their 
families and their homes unharmed. In the dark days of the 
autumn of 1862, when apathy reigned throughout the land, she 
established that Union League which was to the then almost des- 
pairing Lincoln and Stanton, as has been since most emphatically 
stated by the latter, a " Star in the East," harbinger of ultimate 
success. That League gave to the country more than ten full regi- 
ments ; simultaneously uniting with its fellow-citizens in feeding 
and caring for every soldier who passed either south or north, and 
stimulating th6 city corporation to those contributions for which, 
to the amount of $11,000,000, the people of Philadelphia are now 
paying interest. Following closely in the footsteps of those admi- 
rable Philadelphia women who, in the darkest days of the Revolu- 
tion, raised among themselves the moneys required for relief of 
"Washington's suffering companions in arms, their successors, in the 
dark days of the recent war, gave to works of patriotism and of 
charity an amount of energy, both physical and mental, that has 
never been exceeded, and but very rarely equalled.f With the 
exception of Rhode Island and Kansas, Pennsylvania sent to the 
field a larger proportion of her population than any other State. 
Her coal and her iron furnished the force required for maintaining 
the blockade, and for constructing and running the machinery by 
aid of which our whole people were enabled to bear the terrific tax- 
ation of the war. Last, but not least, we have the fact that she 
stands alone in having provided abundantly for the maintenance 
and education of every soldier's orphan within her limits. 

Rightly styled the Keystone of the Union, one duty yet remains 
to her to be performed, to wit: that of bringing about equality in 
the distribution of power over that machinery for whose use men 

* The Constitution was signed Sept. 17, 1787, and was to go into operation so soon as 
nine States should have ratified it. Pennsylvania did so on the 12th of December, the 
Convention for that purpose having been called by the Legislature on the very day on 
which advice had been received of its submission to the States by Congress. Mass.a- 
chusetts followed nearly two months later; but Virginia and New York hesitated until 
after New Hampshire had, on the 21st of June, 1788, furnished the ninth vote, thereby 
establishing a Union from which neither of those States desired to remain excluded. 

f " It was the women of Philadelphia who in that dark hour of peril and sorrow (the 
autumn of 1780) raised by voluntary contribution among themselves a large fund — sin- 
gularly large in view of everything — for the relief of Washington's suffering soldiers at 
camp. The honored list of these noble women is part of Philadelphia's recorded and 
traditionary story, and yet every one seems now to have forgotten it. 

" It lies before us as we write, and there we find names still proudly borne by living 
descendants, which ought to be remembered now— the names of Esther Reed, of Bache, 
of Francis, McKean, Rush, Hutchinson, Morris, Shippen, Gratz, McCall, Montgomery, 
AVilling, Sergeant, and others still surviving. There, too, we find the gift of a thousand 
dollars in coin from the Countess of Luzerne, and the humble 7s. 6c?. of the colored 
woman Phillis ! The fund raised amounted to $300,000 in the only currency then avail- 
able—equivalent to about $10,000 in gold. Now that precedents for generosity are 
sought for, our Philadelphia friends will pardon us for reminding them of this forgotten 
one." — New York Tribune. 



20 

pay interest, and which is known as money. Kew England, heing 
rich and having her people concentrated within very narrow limits, 
has been allowed to absorb a portion of that power fully equal to 
her needs, while this State, richer still, has been so "cabined, 
cribbed, confined," that her mine and furnace operators find it 
difficult to obtain that circulating medium by whose aid alone 
can they distribute among their workmen their shares of the things 
jDroduced. l^ew York, already rich, has been allowed to absorb 
a fourth of the permitted circulation to the almost entire exclu- 
sion of the States south of Pennsylvania and west of the Missis- 
sippi ; and hence it is that her people are enabled to levy upon 
those of all these latter such enormous taxes. To the work of 
correcting this enormous evil Pennsylvania should now address 
herself. Instead of following in the wake of J^ew Jersey and Con- 
necticut, thereby giving to the monopoly an increase of strength, 
let her place herself side by side with the suffering States of the 
"West, the South, and the Southwest, demanding that what has 
been made free to 'New York and New England shall be made 
equally free to her and them. Let her do this, and the remedy will 
be secured, with such increase in the general power for developing 
the wonderful resources of the Union as will speedily make of it 
an iron and cloth exporting State, with such power for retaining 
and controlling the precious metals as will place it on a surer foot- 
ing in that respect than any of the powers of the Eastern world. 
The more rapid the societary circulation and the greater the facility 
of making exchanges from hand to hand, and from place to place, 
the greater is the tendency toward reduction in the rate of interest, 
toward equality in the condition of laborer and employer, and 
toward growth of power to command the services of all the metals, 
gold and silver included. 

It will be said, however, that adoption of such measures as have 
been indicated would tend to produce general rise of prices ; or, in 
the words of our self-styled economists, would cause " inflation." 
The vulgar error here involved was examined some thirty years 
since by an eminent British economist, and with a thoroughness 
, never before exhibited in reference to any other economic question 
whatsoever ; the result exhibiting itself in the following brief words 
of a highly distinguished American one, published some twelve or 
fifteen years since, to wit : — 

"Among the innumerable influences which go to determine the 
general rate of prices, the quantity of money, or currency, is one 
of the least effective."* 

Since then, we have had a great war in the course of which there 
have been numerous and extensive changes in the prices of commo- 
dities, every one of which is clearly traceable to causes widely dif- 
ferent from those to which they so generally are attributed. Be 

* Colwell: Ways and Means of Payment. Philad. 1859. 



21 

f !..c, however, as it ma}^, the question now hoforc ns is one of right 
'; id justice, and not of mere expedienc3^ ISTorth and east of l*cnn- 

ylvania, eight millions of people have been allowed a greater share' 
of the most important of all powers, the money one, than has been 
allotted to the thirty-two millions south and west of JsTew York ; and 
have thus been granted a power of taxation that should be no longer 
tolerated. The basis of our whole system is to 1)6 found in equality 
before the law, each and every man, each and every State, being 
entitled to exercise the same powers that are permitted to other 
people, or other States. If the Union is to be maintained, it can 
be so on no terms other than those of recognition of that equality 
of rights which has here been indicated. To the work of com- 
pelling that recognition Pennsylvania should give herself, inscrib- 
ing on her shield the brief words, fiat justitia, mat coelum — let 
justice be done, though the heavens fall! 

Such being the facts, they are recommended to the careful con- 
sideration of the Committee in the event of its being determined 
that the question involved in this first section is entitled to a place 
in the organic law. Well convinced myself that it has no such 
claim, and that it should be left to the Legislature, I now move 
that the section itself be stricken out. 

Note. — "But it is said, and in fact truly, that usury laws are vestiges of the times 
•when the principles of commercial polity were wholly unknown ; when the Legislature 
extended its interference with the rights of individuals to almost every act of private 
life ; when the prices of bread, cloth, leather, wine, and other necessaries of life were 
fixed by statutes. It does not follow, however, that because these laws first originated 
in the days of political darkness, when numberless legal abuses also had their origin, 
they should therefore be expunged from the statute book. On the contrary, it is con- 
tended by many great and good men that because the usury laws have been hallowed by 
the wisdom and experience of our ancestors they ought not to be abolished. 

"The venerable and learned commentator upon American Law, the late Chancellor 
Kent, in a very lucid opinion which he gave in a usury case then before the Court of 
Errors of the State of New York, an able extract from which is given in a previous 
chapter, after examining the subject at considerable length and referring to the history 
of the laws against usury from the earliest periods, asks : ' Can we suppose that a prin- 
ciple of moral restraint of such uniform and universal adoption has no good sense in it? 
Is it altogether the result of monkish prejudice ? Ought we not rather to conclude that 
the provision is adapted to the necessities and the wants of our species, and grows out 
of the natural infirmity of men, and the temptation to abuse inherent in pecuniary loans ?' 
He then proceeds: 'The question of interest arises constantly and intrudes itself into 
almost every transaction. It stimulates the cupidity for gain and sensibly affects the 
heart, and gradually presses upon the relation of debtor and creditor. Civil government 
is continually placing guards over the weaknesses, and checks upon the passions of men; 
and many cases might be mentioned in which there is, equally with usury laws, an inter- 
ference of the lawgiver with the natural liberty of mankind to deal as they please with 
each other. But no person doubts of the necessity and salutary efficacy of such checks. 
On the same principle that unlimited usury may be permitted, the law ought to allow the 
creditor to insert in his bond a provision for compound interest whenever the stipulated 
interest becomes due and is not paid. Nay, parties ought to be allowed to agree that if the 
condition of a bond be not performed at the day, the penalty shall not only be nominally 
forfeited, but literally exacted. I should apprehend that if these things were to be 
permitted there would not be strength enough in the government to support the admin- 
istration of justice. It is an idle dream to suppose that we are wiser and better than 
the rest of mankind. Such doctrines may be taught by those who find it convenient to 




22 

013 495 293 3 

iaatter popular prejudice; but the records of our courts are aaiiy leHcamg 
of more humility. And I apprehend it would be perilous in the extreme to throw asii'e 
all the existing checks upon usurious extortion, and abolish and traduce a law whieii is 
founded on the accumulated experience of every age.' 

" The Roman commonwealth, if we may place reliance upon its entire history, tried 
every experiment on this interesting subject. The Romans had no law regulating the 
interest of money, and left parties to their own contracts until the law of the Twelve 
t Tables, according to Tacitus, or the law of the Tribunes in the year of Rome 398, 
according to Montesquieu. The consequence was unending quarrels between the patri- 
cians and plebeians, and popular secessions to the mons sacer, in which one party 
pleaded the obligation, and the other the severity of their contracts. Interest was then 
reduced to the smallest allowance, and finally abolished, which led to a still more fright- 
ful usury, until at last the emperors were obliged to allow, but regulate and limit the 
charge of usury. So true it is, according to the President Montesquieu [Esprit des Lois, 
liv. xxii., ch. 21, 22), who has discussed this subject at large, that extreme laws produce 
extreme evil : les loix extremes dans le bienfont naitre le mat extreme. The Romans at one 
time had no laws against usury, and at another time they allowed no interest ; and these 
are the extreme laws which this celebrated civilian condemns. 

"Lord Redesdale said in 1803 (1 Sch. ^ Lef. 195, 312), many years after Jeremy 
Bentham, to whom the learned counsel referred for an able defence of usury, had first 
published his letters, that the statute of usury was founded on great principles of public 
policy. It was intended, he said, to protect distressed men by facilitating the means of 
procuring money on reasonable terms, and by refusing to men who sit idle as high a rate 
of interest, without hazard, as those can procure who employ money in hazardous under- 
takings, or trade and manufactures. I trust that theoretic reformers have not yet at- 
tained on this subject any decided victory over public opinion. Mr. Bentham contends 
that we ought not so much as to wish to see the spirit of project in any degree repressed. 
It may be so ; but I hope I may be permitted to wish that the first experiments of his 
projects may not be made within these walls. The statute of usury is constantly inter- 
posing its warning voice between the creditor and the debtor, and teaches a lesson of 
moderation to the one, and offers its protecting arm to the other. I am not willing to 
withdraw such a sentinel. I have been called to witness, in the course of my official life, 
too many victims to the weakness and to the inflamed passions of men. (Dunham v. 
Gould, 16 Johns. R. 367, 378-380.) 

" The venerable Chancellor is regardea as very competent authority upon the question 
here discussed. His sagacity and great learning particularly fitted him not only to give 
a true exposition of any given enactment, but to judge of the necessity and propriety 
of the enactment itself. From this opinion it is quite clear that in the judgment of this 
eminent jurist the same necessity existed in his day for usury laws as that which called 
for them in earlier times, and that he did not sympathize with the sentiment that such 
■checks are prejudicial to the exercise of enterprise, or stumbling-blocks in the way of 
commercial advancement. And it may be added that in most cases the objections to 
these laws emanate from monej'-lenders themselves, and they are usually most prominent 
in making efforts to obtain their repeal ; and further, that it is the daily observation of 
every discerning business man that no person can continue for any considerable length 
of time in any legitimate calling who is in the constant habit of borrowing money at 
exorbitant interest; his failure is a foregone conclusion, and it is only a question of time. 
The probabilities, therefore, are that these legal restraints will still be continued in many 
or most of the American States, and that the time is at least far distant when the system 
will be permanently abandoned." — Tyler on Usury, Albany, 1873. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



fili 11111111111 lliiiiii iiiiiiiiiii Hill 

013 495 293 3 » 



HoUinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



